


Wolves of Wakanda

by Speary



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Shuri Friendship, Bucky Barnes & T'Challa Friendship, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes and Aneka Friendship, Friends Fixing Bucky, Implied Feelings between Bucky and Steve, Multi, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Black Panther (2018), Wakanda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-04-26 10:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14399934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speary/pseuds/Speary
Summary: Bucky Barnes knows what he is capable of, even if no one else sees it. He feels the ripple of instinct that takes over and drives him toward action. He still feels the bite of cold that lingers in his bones. Most of all, he feels afraid of what he might do and who he might hurt.T'Challa, Aneka, and Shuri won't see the danger. They're too focused on seeing Bucky whole again.





	1. Out of the Cold

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm dipping my toes into the Marvel universe. I'm in no way leaving behind my Destiel writing. This just seemed like a fun exercise in something different. I think that this is five chapters. I'm still writing the end, and it is mostly just Bucky working out his feelings while in Wakanda.

The first breath burned cold. Everything was blurry. He’d have fallen if there weren’t straps holding him in place. Realizing that he was restrained was enough to kick his heart rate up several notches.

“Just breathe, Sergeant Barnes. Just breathe.” His eyes began to focus. The words of encouragement were delivered with a gentle squeeze to his shoulder.

“T'Challa, should I give him…”

“Time? Yes.” The calm voice intoned. “How are you feeling, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Bucky,” he managed to say. He blinked once, twice, three times before things cleared. “Your majesty.”

“T'Challa will be fine when we are not in a more official setting.” He took a step back from Bucky, who was still restrained. “Are you feeling okay yet?”

Bucky thought about the way his body was behaving. It wasn’t entirely right. “Everything is very cold.” This was an understatement. He could feel the cold clawing away at his bones.

“Yes, and it will be for a little longer.” T'Challa reached to a button near Bucky’s head. I’m going to undo the straps that are holding you up. You’ll likely fall. I will catch you though.“

T'challa waited for Bucky to acknowledge him. "Okay.”

He did fall, but T'Challa was true to his word. Bucky let his vision fall on the woman that hovered just behind them. T'Challa lowered Bucky gently into a chair that was all metal and entirely uncomfortable.

The woman crouched down in front of Bucky and peered into his eyes like she could see so much more. “My name is Aneka.” She reached out to him slowly. Bucky’s instinct was to move away. There was something powerful about her, and he was sure she could take him down in a fight. At least that’s what he thought now with ice in his body and chills that seemed in no danger of leaving. “I’d like to place this monitor on you for when you’re not in there.” She nodded back at the chamber that he’d just been in moments ago.

Bucky gave her a slight nod of acceptance. She pressed a small metallic disk to his neck, over his pulse point. She brought up a monitor in her palm. It was three dimensional and seemed to show his rapid heartbeat, and cognitive functions.

She studied the information for a moment before saying, “You do not need to be afraid. Nothing can hurt you right now.” She glanced at his arm, or rather she glanced at the space that should have included his arm.

“Where is it?” Bucky reached for the empty space and rubbed the bit of flesh and metal where it would connect.

Aneka got up and moved to a wall across the room. With a slight wave of her hand, a drawer opened and a light came on within. She reached in and lifted out the metal arm. “It is here. It is safe.” She held it out to him, but he didn’t move toward it. His heart seemed to stumble in his chest at the sight of it.

T'Challa moved between them as if he knew what Bucky was feeling. He was wearing green. The color caught the light in a mesmerizing way. Bucky focused on that. “You were supposed to keep me in there until it was safe. Is it safe?”

T'Challa smiled at him. “When is the world ever truly safe?” Bucky let his head drop, the weight of what he was, what he’d always be felt heavier now.

“You should put me back in there then.”

“Or I should let you heal out here.” T'Challa waved his hand out toward the vision of a vast valley and so much sunlight that Bucky could barely look at it for all of its brightness. “Believe me when I say this. You’ll never heal if you stay frozen in that thing. You have to learn how to live out in the real world again, talk to people and not feel like running.”

“I’m dangerous. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Then you won’t.”

Bucky snorted out a short laugh. “Yeah, because it’s that easy. Steve know you’re pulling me out of cold storage? Pretty sure he’d agree; this is a bad idea.”

“Steve wanted you to heal. You don’t have to stay in there to do that.” T'Challa set a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “We did what we could with you in there. We even did some work on the arm. When you feel ready for it…”

Bucky interrupted, “I’m not.”

“I know.” T'Challa got up and let his hand fall back to his side. “I have to head out for a few weeks. Aneka will show you to your room and keep an eye on you.” Bucky glanced at her, and she nodded an acknowledgement. “We’ll talk when I return.”

With that he turned and left. Bucky felt the weight on his chest more heavily than before. Aneka broke through the silence saying, “Follow me, Sergeant Barnes.” She moved to another door, near the one that T'Challa just passed through.

Bucky stood slowly, testing his legs a little by putting his weight fully on one then the other. He believed he could walk without falling if he concentrated. The cold was still there like needles now in every muscle. He took one step. Aneka, to her credit, did not rush to help him. Bucky was grateful. He wanted to do this himself.

He could feel his muscles start to shake with the effort. _You’re a fucking super soldier, damn it. Get it_ _together._ He took a step, then another, and he did not fall.


	2. Small Steps

The weeks passed. Things began to become predictable. Bucky took some comfort in that. He concentrated on the passing of time, how many seconds or minutes there were between meals or visits from Aneka.

Few words passed from her lips, but Bucky could tell what she wasn’t saying. He could see in the way that she assessed his vitals and even just his general being that she did not trust him. For that, Bucky respected her even more.

During his time alone, Bucky, explored his rooms. He ventured out into the corridor once, just to get a sense of the place. He let himself believe that he couldn’t leave, that this was confinement. The door at the end of the corridor helped with that.

It was solid vibranium, a respectable choice. It set off small yet violent chills throughout Bucky’s body as he stood before it. He hastily retreated back to his room. It’s where he felt he belonged anyway. It was safe there or at least safer.

He would have continued on in that way if it weren’t for T'Challa’s return. Bucky was sitting at a desk, sketching. The image was home and not. It was a rooftop in Brooklyn with a wolf standing at the edge peering out at the cityscape. T'Challa knocked and entered. He walked over to the desk and stared down at the sketch. Bucky set down the pencil.

T'Challa wore white today with decorative grey sashes. His brows were drawn together. There was something somewhat sombre about him in this moment. “Aneka tells me that you never go out. She doesn’t even think you’ve left this room.”

“I have.”  _ The corridor counts.  _ Bucky looked away though.

“No, you haven’t gone outside. She’d have known.” T'Challa leaned against the edge of the desk, sitting just slightly. He ran a hand over his face up over his head. He seemed tired.

“I went into the corridor, clear down to the door.” It seemed important that T'Challa knew that.

It made him smile just slightly. “Why no further?”

“I need to feel like I can’t leave. There are people out there.” Bucky looked away again. “I’m not safe yet.”

“Come with me.” T'Challa stood. He began moving to the door. “Trust me. I’m far stronger than you, and I won’t let you hurt anyone.”

Bucky stood and followed T'Challa to the door. They moved into the corridor with it’s grey stone walls and golden amber lights near the ceiling. They drew close to the door, and Bucky could feel the sweat beading up on the back of his neck. “This is enough.” He didn’t mean to say it and display his fear.

“On the other side of this door is the lab. You’ve been in there already.” T'Challa opened the door. Bucky felt like his muscles might seize up and just refuse to move him forward. T'Challa pointed across the lab to another door. “We’re going through that door. Beyond it is a vast stretch of land, so much land, Bucky.”

“I don’t think I should.”

T'Challa settled a hand under Bucky’s elbow. “You’ll be okay. Trust me.” He guided him to the door and opened it.

There really was a long stretch of rich green grassland. It stretched so far that the edges were lost in morning fog. Bucky had thought that it was later, afternoon or early evening. He shook his head, wondering how he’d been so wrong about the time. “It is beautiful here.”

T'Challa guided Bucky to a path. They walked alongside each other until they came to a smooth rock. T'Challa took a seat. Bucky sat too. They stared at the land and the gently rolling grasses. The little breeze brought with it the smell of earth and some sort of flower that Bucky didn’t recognize.

There were birds on the far horizon and animals in pens. Bucky squinted to get a better view of them. “Rhinos?”

“Yes. They are used for war.” Bucky felt his muscles tighten. The thought of what he was, what he was made for, flooded his mind at the mere mentioning of war. “Where’d you go just now?” T'Challa asked.

“Nowhere.” Bucky chose to just stare into the distance.

“I imagine that you have seen far more war than peace. It is too bad. Wakanda has known it’s fair share of war. We have fought grim battles to protect this world, and yet I wonder sometimes if there could have been another way, a better way.”

Bucky nodded in acknowledgement then said, “There’s always someone out there willing to take away the better options.” They both fell into silence. Bucky remembered though. He remembered the ways they had of twisting his will, making it their own. It was a knife still digging away at his insides.

In the silence, T'Challa got up and strode a few paces into the high grass. He snapped a blade of grass and proceeded to shred it into bits. Eventually his shoulders sagged, and without turning, he asked, “Do you ever wonder how it would have been if you could’ve changed just one thing from back then?”

“What’s the point?”

T'Challa stooped and picked up some small stones that he then proceeded to throw out into the distance. “There are things I’d change if I could.” He fell still, and minutes passed as silence filled the time. He threw a stone and said, “I’d find a way to keep vibranium out of the hands of Hydra. I’d go back and find a way.”

Bucky cringed a little at the mentioning of them. “You had nothing to do with that.”

“My family did though.” T'Challa still didn’t face him. He threw another stone hard and then let his hand fall at his side. “I would understand if some part of you hated me a little for what my family didn’t stop.”

He turned to Bucky then. There was sincerity in the glance. “Even they had nothing to do with it. And there’s no sense in wasting energy hating good people when there’s plenty others that warrant it more.”

In a more subdued tone, T'Challa said, “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. Besides, you provided the same vibranium that went into making Steve’s shield. I for one am pretty glad he has that.” Bucky’s tone was light. He focused on T'Challa as he spoke now.

T'Challa seemed to brighten just a bit. “Speaking of,” he started as he moved back to sit on the rock besides Bucky. “Shuri is crafting a better shield for him.”

“Who’s Shuri?”

T'Challa smiled and even glanced back at the lab like he was looking for her before he spoke. “Only the most intelligent woman I’ve ever met. Oh, and also my sister.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t remember her name.”

“You haven’t been formally introduced yet. I am surprised that Aneka hasn’t spoken of her though. They are close.”

Bucky reached down to the ground and found some small stones, and now he proceeded to throw them with some force out into the long stretch of land before him. “Aneka checks in on me. I don’t engage in conversation. I’m sorry. I suppose I should be making more of an effort to act like a real person again and not this.” He waved a hand around in front of himself.

T'Challa tipped his head to the side and asked, “Do you give yourself any credit?”

Bucky folded his hands in front of him. “Not yet.”

“You have a lot of people in your corner. That might feel like a lot of pressure, but we wouldn’t be there if you didn’t seem to be a human worthy of the effort.”

They got up from the rock together and meandered back to the building. When they reached Bucky’s door, T'Challa gently settled his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, nodded then left.


	3. A Gentle Beating

Aneka came each day, just as always. Then, one day she did not. Bucky found a basket full of food left at his door in the hall and a note that read, “Duty calls,” in sharp print. He wondered what duty had pulled her away. He wandered the hall, but he didn’t venture back outside.

There was a lot of food in the basket, enough for two days of generous eating. By the second day another basket was in the hall. The note in this one read, “I’ll be back tomorrow.” It was the same sharp print. Bucky wondered if it was from Aneka. He wondered also if she had written the notes and left them with a capable guard.

He was still not to be trusted.

Bucky spent the final day at his desk, sketching places he’d been, people he’d known. He heard the door to his room open, but he pretended ignorance. Aneka moved silently to the wall next to his desk. He could hear the subtle shift of her clothes and breath.

She leaned against the wall and watched him sketch. Eventually she broke the silence. “This all you did while I was away?”

Bucky let out a low hum as if to say yeah. He looked up at her. She’d shaved her head. She was dressed in the garb of the Dora Milaje. “I ate the food you left.” He attempted a smile. She pushed off the wall.

“And?”

Bucky thought of the past couple of days. They’d been rather dull. “I did my usual workout and paced the hall as well.” He turned back to the sketch. It was of Steve as he’d last seen him staring out at Wakanda before they had finished setting up Bucky’s temporary situation. The scene was a little less than accurate. He’d removed the other people that had been in the room at the time. There was just Steve and the endless land in front of him. Bucky had added a wolf to the edge of the scene.

Aneka tapped the paper. “You are talented.”

“It passes the time.” He didn’t look at her.

“Why all of the wolves in your drawings?” She leaned back again.

“I don’t know. They add a touch of menace.”

“Hmm.” Aneka pushed off the wall again. “Come with me. Wear shoes.” She didn’t wait for him to protest. Bucky caught up with her in the lab. “Follow me.” She moved to the door and opened it. The fresh smell of the outside greeted him.

“I shouldn’t.” Bucky stepped back.

She turned to him. “What?” She stepped close. “You seriously think that you are a danger. I could snap you like a twig if I wished. You are a strong man, but you are not Dora Milaje strong.” She smiled, and Bucky thought he could believe her. “We’ll spar. After I gently beat you, you’ll trust my ability to keep you and others safe.”

Bucky followed her.

They wandered down the same path that he’d taken before with T’Challa. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere where no one will worry over our fighting.” She turned to him a little. “You and I are both strong enough to do some damage if we wanted to do so. People seeing that might think we were serious and try to intervene. I’d rather not worry anyone.”

“You really plan to do this?” She nodded. Bucky continued, “You aren’t concerned that I’ll snap, forget myself?”

“Not a bit.” She laughed and added, “It’s like you don’t see me, you broken boy. I am a warrior. I defend the king of Wakanda.” She stopped walking and leveled her gaze on him. “The _King_ , Sergeant Barnes.” There was weight in her words. Bucky looked away first. Of course she was strong, powerful, but he wasn’t a mere human, and the broken parts of his mind were the very things that she was not considering.

“I don’t know what I am anymore. I’ve killed people, Aneka, people I don’t even remember.”

She reached back to her shoulder and gripped the long staff that she had strapped to her back. She pulled it free and to the front of her. “That makes two of us. Sometimes it is necessary, and sometimes it is tragic. You can only hope, that at the end of your days, that you did more good than harm.” She dropped into a crouch.

“I know the damage that it left for some.”

“Do you wish to talk about it or spar with me, because we can’t do both?”

“I don’t have a weapon.”

She tossed him her staff. “No excuses.”

“Don’t you need this?” Bucky held it out between them.

“If I do, I’ll take it back.” She smiled and launched herself at him. Bucky sidestepped. She moved like she was made of wind, a gale force wind at that. He rolled into a tree and felt the bark scrape away a bit of flesh. His hair fell into his face and covered one eye. He regretted not tying it back first. Bucky got his footing, barely, but Aneka lunged at him again. He twisted and snapped the staff across the back of her shoulder blades. “Ha, there’s some graceful fight in you yet, Sergeant.”

“I didn’t mean to…” His words were cut off by a swift blow to the stomach. He slumped a little, but he recovered quickly enough to sweep her legs. She jumped, landing behind him. Then she was on him, legs wrapped tight around his midsection. Bucky felt like this woman would get along quite well with Steve’s friend Natasha. _This is no time for reminiscing._ She wound an arm up under his chin and was cutting off his air. He could deal. He’d been deprived for long spells before.

He felt a shiver run through his body. He remembered a moment like this from before. It was a tremor that precluded the instinctual takeover. He’d gained control, then he’d lost all sense of time and place. His body was not his own; it was a machine, controlled and guided. The memory of it caused a sudden wave of panic. Aneka must have sensed it as she loosened her grip on him just a little.

“So much hair, Sergeant Barnes. Surely it hinders your vision and gives the enemy something to grab in a fight.” She laughed at him a little. “I could give you a shave.”

Bucky growled out a strangled protest. He focused on just getting free from her grasp. He didn’t think of the past, the loss. He just focused on this moment in front of him and escape.

It was odd fighting with just the one arm. He had to discard the staff to free himself from her grip. His remaining arm was strong. It wasn’t like the other though. He was wrong to think that he could defeat her. The realization angered him. He slammed them both back against a tree. He could hear the gust of air leave her lungs. He did it again, and her grip loosened. He pulled in a breath before she squeezed him again. He slammed her back again and pulled at her arm at the same time. He got free and rolled to the staff.

Bucky was breathing heavily, getting what air he could before she could lunge at him again. She didn’t lunge at him though. Instead she spoke. “You see me now, don’t you Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky stared at her, and licked his lips. “I see you, but you don’t see me.”

“Oh, I see you. I see your fear, your anger. I see what you are capable of. You just think you are more broken than you are.” She moved in a circle around him. Bucky mirrored her moves. She was like a cat stalking prey that it knew it would capture.

“You underestimate me. The things I’ve done. I could do it again. Anything could trigger it.” He breathed deeply. “This, this fighting, could be their thing. With Steve I was able to push it down, the itch.” He stopped and leveled his eyes on her. “So you're wrong. You don't know.”

She stood up straighter. She didn’t look like she’d attack, and Bucky was left wondering if she’d finally decided that they could stop. She took a deep breath, then said, “The day you came to us, the day Captain Rogers brought you to Wakanda, I was there.” She waved back toward the building that had been his home for over a month now. “I spoke with T’Challa before, about what this would mean and why we should not make you our problem.”

“You were right,” Bucky interrupted.

“Quiet.” She stepped closer to him. The look in her eyes locked his next response down. “I wasn’t right. I knew that the moment I spoke with the Captain. You went into the freeze, and T’Challa took Captain Rogers aside. They spoke for a time about the healing process and what they’d do to repair your arm.” She reached out and took the staff from Bucky. He’d actually forgotten that he’d picked it up again and that he'd been holding it.

“I’m sure he told him that I should stay locked in that thing until it was safe. I’m sure he would not approve of this.” Bucky waved his hand around, signifying all of himself.

“In that you are wrong. He didn’t want to see you in that thing in the first place.”

“No. He did want that. He knew it would be safer for everyone.” Bucky began pacing.

“Then why did he tell me to get you out as soon as possible?” She took a step closer to him, and without thinking, he took a step back. “Why did he say to T’Challa and I, ‘Please don’t leave him in there any longer than is absolutely necessary?”

“He didn’t say that.” Bucky felt his chest throb, his heart stuttering a bit more than it should.

“He thought this was what you wanted, what you needed. He set this in motion because he didn’t want you to be afraid anymore, and look at you now. You’re afraid of every simple thing, every breath of air, every movement. The Captain wanted more for you than that, Sergeant Barnes.”

He felt his breathing stabbing at the walls of his chest. The instinctual feelings from before had subsided. He could not look at her. He couldn’t bear seeing the truth painted on her face. If what she said was true, then that would mean that he was only here for himself. That was not believable. Bucky looked to her face now and saw within it confirmation. “Steve never did know what was best for the world. He didn’t see me right either.”

“Did you ever think that maybe it’s you that doesn’t see things right?” Aneka settled a hand on his shoulder. He glanced to the place of contact, focused on the warmth of her grip.

“Then how do I get better?” It was an admission, that he never planned to make.

“Shuri will be home tonight. Maybe we start by talking with her. She knows what has been changed in your arm, and she’s working on some things for Captain Rogers too.” She smiled at him. “Perhaps you two will have some things in common.”

“Perhaps.” They walked back to the lab together. She left him at his door. His thoughts whirled and shifted.


	4. Reflection

Shuri had been busy when she returned, something with T’Challa. Whatever they had been up to had caused Aneka to be away too. She left him a note and another, generous basket of food. Bucky took to eating outside. He wanted to force himself over the fear. If Steve wanted that for him, then he owed it to him to at least try. The first day he only made it as far as opening the door to the outside. Without Aneka or T’Challa there, he felt like he was too free. 

By the second day though, with a small muffin in his hand, he wandered out to the path that he’d taken with Aneka the last time he’d been outside. The air was crisp with the hint of future rain. There were birds flying in the distance. He could hear the noise of the War Rhinos in their pens. The vast green veldt stretching out in front of him was serene and beautiful. He found a smooth rock and sat on it as he stared out at the horizon. He picked the muffin apart, eating it slowly.

He had donned one of the loose fitting outfits that Aneka had left for him. It was an almond toned type of wrap. It let the air roll over his skin a little. He pulled his hair up into a loose bun to keep the breeze from tangling it. Over his shoulder he had a strap that ran to the pack on his back. He carried in it, his sketching supplies.  _ It is good to have hobbies, human even. _ He told himself this even as he had packed the bag in the early morning. He had to remind himself of his human qualities if he wanted to feel safe out in the world without an escort.

He slid the bag off his back and opened up his sketchbook on his lap. He had several basic pencils and pens. He began sketching the land in front of him. He thought that it would be nice to look back at it in the future, remember the beauty of it. In the high grass he added a wolf, lean and dark. It had hungry eyes that stared with menace. Bucky stared off at the far end of the veldt and saw a small rocky hill. He turned his gaze back to his drawing and added the rocks to his piece. Perched atop the rocks though, in the distance, he added another wolf. This one had gentle eyes and a tilt to its head that seemed almost welcoming. 

Bucky let his thumb brush lightly over the wolf once he’d finished it. It smeared a little. He cleaned it up with the pencil before feeling like the piece was done. There were things from his past that would haunt him forever, things he could only address in his art. He turned through the pages. The first was a picture of a rooftop. He’d felt guilty when he’d made it. The rooftop was from the past. He’d spent countless nights on it.

The rooftop was across a the street from the apartment that belonged to Steve Rogers, the target. He had watched Steve, day in and day out, living out some sort of lonely domestic life. Even then, with his mind not his own, he felt the pang of what he would now call grief as he watched him. Steve was alone. There were glitches in his thought processes then, glitches that he now recognized as memories that had been scratching the surface, desperate to get through. Still, Bucky had aimed his weapon, laid a finger to the trigger. Each time he had told himself that he was ready. Each time he had failed to complete the mission.

This had gone on for weeks. His handlers had questioned his skill, sent him out on smaller missions to test him. He’d succeeded at each. He always worked efficiently, leaving himself enough extra time to return to the rooftop. He told himself that he didn’t like the cowardly approach of killing from a distance, and that was the only problem. It was a lie, as he had killed plenty of people that never managed to be close to him. A sniper rifle was an excellent tool, and proximity was not the problem.

It’s possible to let yourself believe a lot of things. He was glad that his mind had found that necessary as it had been what saved Steve, that and the plant.

One night, he had been determined to follow through. He’d climbed up onto the rooftop with all the focus and drive that he’d need to complete the mission. Captain Rogers must die. He set himself up on the ledge just like he had so many times before. A noise rippled past him, a little gust of wind carrying a piece of paper across the roof. Bucky looked to it. There was a potted plant in the corner. A rhododendron was blooming in it. His mind involuntarily sifted through plant classifications to get the specifics on this flower. “Blue Diamond,” he had whispered the words to the night air.

Bucky remembered thinking about the way that the blue was familiar. He remembered how he had shaken his head and turned back to his scope. He remembered taking careful aim as he waited for a clean shot through Steve’s window. Steve was in his kitchen, cooking something. The glitches came again. Bucky’s mind involuntarily cycled through memories. He remembered how he had gripped his head up there on the rooftop as an image of a kitchen and a smaller Steve making soup filled his mind. 

Bucky closed his eyes. 

Just like that night on the rooftop, he could almost smell it, the salty chickeny scent of Steve’s cooking. He’d been sick once when they were younger, and Steve had said that his mom was always making him soup when he needed it, so it made sense for him to make some for Bucky. 

The memory was soft and clean now as it had been before the infinite cruelties. And here in the vast green valleys of Wakanda, he could sketch it and revel in all of the beauty of that one memory and all of its power. The world for him back then had been hard and broken. Memories were tainted, nightmarish things.

Even then, though, even when Bucky had been so broken and so completely under their collective thumbs, he had seen Steve in a long ago kitchen in vivid full glory. It was a fully fleshed out memory that years of programming and torture hadn’t managed to erase. They’d only managed to bury it a little. Bucky knew then, as he sat on that rooftop, gun at the ready, that if he took the shot, that the memory would be tainted with blood like so many other memories were. He hadn’t wanted to lose this one, this newly acquired dreamscape. He had nothing in his head that was pure and clean and good. But there was this now, and he had wanted to keep it. It went against everything, the mission, his handlers, his or maybe their desire to wash those walls in Steve Roger’s blood. 

When he left the roof yet again, no kill, no completed mission, Bucky had decided that the next attempt would have to end up close. It would force his hand, and he’d finally be done.

The sketch of the rooftop fluttered a little in his lap. The page flipped to the next. Steve stood in the window of his apartment, arm framing the top of the window as he pressed his forehead to the cool glass. It was a familiar sight. Bucky had watched him standing just like that every night that he’d spent on the rooftop. He had added a wolf to the ledge just over Steve’s floor. He brushed a hand over the picture. There was fondness in the gesture. 

“I could call you, tell you I’m out. No more popsicle Bucky.” He took in a breath and held it. “I could tell you that I’m not afraid.” Bucky was afraid though, afraid that there was always a chance of him turning again. He could feel the low hum of momentum beneath his skin, the instinctual urge that seemed strongest when he was fighting. It was still there when he sparred with Aneka. It might always be there. “It was different when I fought at your side.”

Bucky got up and put the sketchbook in his pack along with the pencils. A droplet of rain splashed down on his cheek. He picked up the pace and marched back to the lab.

**Author's Note:**

> As always thank you for any kudos you feel like leaving and any kind words. You can also find me on Tumblr under the name [Spearywritesstuff](http://spearywritesstuff.tumblr.com/) or more often on Twitter under the name [Spearywrites](https://twitter.com/spearywrites)


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